


In Another World

by 1000PaperCranes



Series: Reality Works [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Rescue Bots
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: s01e04 Flobsters On Parade, Gen, Heatwave Plays Hookie, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-01-30 02:47:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21420922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000PaperCranes/pseuds/1000PaperCranes
Summary: Was watching this episode and realized that Heatwave is completely extraneous to the plot.  He's a jerk to Kade, does some stuff Kade could do perfectly fine on his own, and demands credit for what Kade did.I decided Heatwave needed to apologize.Which of course, he doesn't.As usual, Kade pays the price.
Relationships: Kade Burns & Burns Family, Kade Burns & Heatwave
Series: Reality Works [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1965970
Comments: 8
Kudos: 54





	1. Chapter 1

“_Aren’t there usually **four** rescue bots? Oh, well. The crowd doesn’t seem to miss him_!” Heatwave growled, shutting off the television. He didn’t need them. _Any_ of them. Or their stupid parade.

And until it was over, he was free of Kade.

Heatwave busied himself preparing a wash station. With the whole night to himself, this was the perfect time to wash _all_ of his parts.

It also wouldn’t hurt to wash away all the humiliation.

They were Cybertronians, slag it all, but they had to pretend to be mindless robots. Stupid, puny humans ordering them around. _Kade_. Always frag-headed Kade barking stupid orders at him. ‘Extend your ladder!’ like Heatwave didn’t already know that. The human fireman was _nothing_ without Heatwave. And he was a glory hog to the point of being dangerous.

The water was gloriously warm when he didn’t have to share it. Heatwave retracted his seals, flowing the water under his plates to loosen grime that had been building up since before they made planet fall.

Just as Heatwave was wiggling off his gorget the alarm sounded. Looking at the mess and the plating in his hand, Heatwave wondered how he was supposed to deal with this.

“_Heatwave, I know you can hear me. Get over here you pile of slag_!” The last word was oddly garbled, but by Kade himself, not the connection. The redhead had done something similar two weeks previously on the phone. Heatwave had tapped into the conversation, mostly just to see how Earth communications worked. Kade had been talking to a woman, though it wasn’t a voice Heatwave had heard on the island. He had moaned into the phone, ‘I need to get laid _so bad_.’ Cody had walked by at the same moment. It was still bizarre the way his oldest brother attempted to scratch out the word ‘laid’ in the middle of saying it. ‘What’s that?’ Cody had asked. ‘Can I get you something, Kade?’ Kade had appeared to choke. ‘Your brother there?’ the female voice had asked. Kade had waved Cody away, pointing at the phone by way of explanation. Cody had shrugged and left. With a harsh cough, Kade had replied in a tone that wasn’t quite defensive or indignant, and carried an undercurrent of reverence, ‘Kid’s stainless. I can’t say something like that in front of him.’ The voice snorted. ‘He that age?’ it asked. ‘Just about.’ Kade had sighed heavily, and Heatwave had wondered what it all meant.

“_Hello? Heatwave, can you hear me_?” Kade asked in an insincerely coaxing tone. The premise slipped away over the next sentence, ending in raging frustration. “_It would be **so nice** if you could drop by, you pile of_–” This time Kade cut himself off completely at the sound of Cody indignantly yelling in the background.

At least one human cared about Heatwave’s feelings. Nothing else was said and if all Kade wanted was to yell at him… Heatwave was busy. Besides, his starter was _broken,_ and he’d have to peel off a few more plates to reach it. And it was no use _repairing_ a dirty component, or putting it back into a dirty configuration…


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey? Where’s Frankie?” Cody asked, looking around for his best friend.

Kade’s heartrate kicked up as he scanned the arthropod addled crowd for the ten-year-old. Geniuses got into _so_ much more trouble than anyone else. And he would know. Babysitting Graham had been a nightmare. “I don’t see her.”

A lobster dove at Cody’s face. Kade jumped forward, knocking the crustacean away. “What _are_ these things? Lobsters don’t act like this.” They were a little snappy, sure, but Kade had never had problems emptying a lobster pot with his bare hands. He ripped another one out of his sleeve. A shovel! Kade grabbed the tool, defending himself and his baby brother as the com-tab rang again. He honestly didn’t pay much attention to the call until he heard Frankie’s voice shouting tinnily out of the device.

“**_You’re_**_ in the middle of something?!_” Frankie’s sharp gasp of terror had Kade’s full attention. Kids weren’t allowed to make sounds like that. Kade looked over Cody’s shoulder. The call was coming from the communication booth across from the tag and title. He took off at a sprint.

“_Calling all rescue bots,_” Cody transmitted over the parade frequency a solid thirty seconds later. Kade sprinted faster, not really listening. He could see the com booth up ahead. He could _hear_ Frankie screaming for help.

These crazy crustaceans were breaking the glass paneling of the com booth. Kade wondered if it had been a bad idea to leave the shovel behind as he pulled off his jacket. Finally reaching the com booth, Kade used the heavy fabric to swat the attacking arthropods away from the door.

Frankie screamed, high and shrill when one of the lower panes finally shattered. Kade pushed through the door, wrapping his bunker coat around Frankie’s head and shoulders. Lifting her off the ground, Kade whirled away from the swarming lobsters. He pulled a particularly fierce one off Frankie’s ankle. She yelped and finally began to cry, curling up into a ball against his chest.

“I got you. I got you.” And Kade did.

But who had him? He was defenseless without his hands. Sure, he could kick at the little menaces, but that didn’t do anything for his _head_. And neck. And back. Kade buried his face in the fluffy, black hair sticking out of the neck of his occupied gear for some modicum of protection.

Ow, he thought, as one of the lobsters began ripping out his hair. That was weirdly deliberate.

Kade hissed, collapsing defensively to his knees when a pincer clamped down on his tricep. He curled over Frankie, intent on shielding her despite the whimpers now escaping his throat. Another claw slipped inside Kade’s poor armor, latching on to a stress-expressed stabilizer muscle in his neck. “Ah!”

“Kade! Kade, what’s happening?” Frankie’s voice was muffled, but absolutely terrified.

“It’s okay,” Kade promised with a calmness he did not feel. “I’ve got you.” He curled tighter around Frankie, hoping he had been right that Cody had been calling the whole team _here_. Time slowed to a crawl as the assault continued.

Kade shouted in surprise as hands grabbed him.

“What? What?” Frankie cried, trying to get smaller, to hold on to him. Kade screamed as the lobster was ripped away from his neck. “Kade!” Frankie began to sob his name as two sets of large warm hands pulled the clawing _flobsters_ from Kade’s arms and back and hair.

“It’s okay, Frankie.” He squeezed her against his chest. “Help’s here.” Kade risked opening his eyes. “Yaah!”

“What?” Frankie yelled.

Kade shifted her comfortingly, letting her slide into the cradle of his lap now that he’d fallen on his rear. “Nothing. Graham’s face was just _way_ closer than I expected.”

Graham smiled. Grinned, really, an indulgent kind of thing that made Kade feel _so safe_. If Graham could smile like that, they were good, at least for now. “Dad’s trying to get the last one off your ear without ripping it.” He moved closer and reached out.

“Oh.” Kade allowed his little brother to uncover Frankie. “Ow. Didn’t even feel that one until now.” He kept very still, letting his father poke and pry while Graham extracted Frankie from the tangle of quilted Nomex. “She’s alright, mostly. One of those monsters got her in the ankle.” There was a crack, and the piercing pain in the cartilage of his right ear diminished to a hot throbbing. Kade sighed in relief, looking down into Frankie’s pink-rimmed eyes. “Hey, Sweetie-Belle,” he said lowly, wiping the tearstains from her face, “You okay?”

Frankie nodded meekly, then buried her face in Kade’s chest.

“Thanks, Dad.” Kade stood up. His father and his brother were there. Chase and Boulder kept the flobsters at bay. Dani and Blades circled in the air, collecting the offending flobsters in a pot.

“You want me to take her?” Graham offered.

“Nah.” Kade didn’t doubt for a second that Graham could carry the girl; he was pretty sure his little brother could carry _Dani_, but… he wasn’t quite ready to let go.

Chase transformed, reminding Kade that they weren’t out of the woods yet. “I believe someone was worried about you,” Chase said as Cody leapt from the patrol car.

“Frankie!” Cody grabbed her ankle, wiping away the blood and inspecting the damage for himself. “You’re bleeding!” Cody was twelve, what else did he know about it?

“I’m okay,” Frankie assured her best friend, sounding rather less than.

“_Do you need me down there?_” Dani asked, clearly worried that they were still fussing over the girl despite the looming vortex of bottom feeders. Graham held up Frankie’s ankle for Kade to see. The EMT shook his head: no damage.

“No, Dani,” Graham told her. “Kade says she’s fine.”

“_Is **Kade** fine?_”

“He’s got a new hole in his head,” their father said with a flash of a wily smile, “But nothing a little disinfectant won’t fix.”

Kade rolled his eyes. “Oh, yeah, sure. Give her ideas.” But he laughed with everyone else as they made their way back towards Doc and hopefully some kind of workable solution to this Neptunian nightmare.


	3. Chapter 3

“What happened to _you_?” Heatwave asked when he returned from putting away his supplies to find the rest of the team standing in the bays. Kade was a mess. His hair was disheveled, and his white shirt stained with red spots. Something brown had dried onto the side of his face and ear and was slowly flaking off again.

Kade turned, rage flashing in his eyes. It wasn’t quite enough to keep Heatwave’s optics from wandering to the purple stain at the base of his tiny ‘handler’s’ neck.

“Seriously.” Heatwave wanted to know, now.

Kade growled. Actually growled, like some kind of feral razorbeast. “I did your job.” He squared up to Heatwave, leaning forward in that way that somehow negated the fact that he had to look _up_ to meet the bot’s gaze. “You know why? Because I’m a firefighter. A _real, **human**,_ run-the-other-way firefighter.”

Run the other way?

“We were attacked,” the Chief reported with all seriousness. Heatwave felt himself go momentarily blank. Then it computed. When civilians were running _from_ something, firefighters ran the _other_ way. Towards the danger.

Whatever it was obviously hadn’t been _too_ dangerous. Only Kade was damaged and only mildly, and he was an idiot. “You were in danger?” Heatwave asked, just managing to keep the incredulousness from his voice.

“Doc Greene accidentally unleashed an astonishingly violent flock of flying lobsters on the festivities.” Chase informed him.

Lobsters? Weren’t they smaller than Cody’s arm?

“Frankie was hurt,” Kade was scowling at him like an angry fizz-rat. Heatwave expected the man to continue on about _his own_ injuries, but he didn’t. “Fortunately for you, a task force tip does some pretty nice misting.” Kade hands unconsciously moved as if he were holding a hose. A thick, red liquid dripped onto the cement floor from the back of his arm.

“Kade. You’re bleeding again,” Cody said quietly.

“Yeah?” Kade turned around, ruffling his baby brother’s hair before tipping his head up. “It’s alright, kiddo.” Kade’s smile for his little brother was soft and Cody grinned trustingly back.

“Yeah?”

“Mm-hmm.” Kade nodded. He leaned down and kissed Cody’s forehead. “Wanna grab me the first aid kit?” Kade didn’t turn back around when Cody ran off.

Everything came to an awkward stop.

Heatwave might be the leader, but that never stopped Chase from speaking to him in a punitive tone. Given the situation, he expected a full dressing down.

What he got was worse.

Chase sighed gutturally, pinching his nose plate. “There is no ‘I’ in ‘team’, Heatwave. Nor is there an ‘I’ in ‘Rescue Bots’.” Oh, Primus. Chase wasn’t just disappointed in him; he was _disappointed_ in him.

“But there is a ‘me’,” Kade said with aggravated charity. The team made a plethora of contrary noises. “I’m just saying.” Kade sighed, finally turning back to Heatwave. “You don’t want to go to the parade? Fine. I get it.”

Silence reigned. Cody came back with a tackle-box. Kade pushed his bunker-pants down over his boots and tossed the bundle into his cubby. He pulled off his shirt and stood there in his boxers and socks, allowing Dani to pour astringent liquid over his wounds and begin scrubbing.

“I’m not going to order you to show up for no reason.” Kade didn’t sound _disappointed_, he sounded _resigned_. Heatwave discovered that he hated that even more. “You ignore me like that again, and it will be the last time.”

Kade wasn’t looking at him as Dani turned her older brother this way and that, so Heatwave looked to the Chief for clarity. The man just raised an eyebrow, apparently siding with his son.

Heatwave was confused. The humans frequently ignored the things Kade said. Especially his demands. It must have shown on Heatwave’s face because Graham stepped forward. The man brushed a hand over his big brother’s shoulder.

“Heatwave.” Graham seemed to know what he wanted to say, but not how to say it. “Kade isn’t just your handler, he’s a fully-fledged firefighter in his own right. No one expects you to cater to his every whim, but this was an emergency. Frankie was hurt and terrorized, Kade was injured protecting her, the whole town was at risk. Kade may not be the…” Graham grappled with tact. After a second Kade snorted. Suddenly, it didn’t seem as if the engineer were attempting to spare his brothers feelings. “…the brightest heliovole in the smithy. Did I get that right?” He threw a glance over his shoulder at Boulder.

“What Graham’s trying to say is that if I didn’t take my tests with an axe I would have failed out of college.” Kade seemed very dismissive of his own intelligence, what there was of it.

“You’re not that bad,” Graham assured him. “I would have failed high school if it wasn’t for you.”

Kade turned and raised a supremely inquisitive brow.

“Didn’t think I knew about that, did you?”

“No.” Kade didn’t blink. “Didn’t want you to.”

“Well, too bad.” Graham’s smirk subsided to something thoughtful. “I used to hate you. I remember a time when I seriously thought…” He didn’t finish, looking pensive. “The next week I broke Mister Biddeford’s leg.”

“You did that on purpose?” the Chief burst. “_Graham_.”

“He threatened to kill Kade.”

Charlie Burns went _very_ still. “What words _exactly_ did he use?”

Graham’s face shifted unnaturally as he mimicked their varsity soccer coach. “If you don’t get your fuckin’ grades in order, I won’t just kick your sorry ass off the team, I’ll put your goddamn stupid corpse in an unmarked grave.” Graham dropped the impression, his face smoothing out. “I slide tackled him.” Graham shrugged like it was no big deal.

Kade blinked at his little brother. “You are _vicious_.”

Graham shrugged again. “I did it. Pretty sure the statute of limitations is up.” Another shrug for the still incredulous looks he received.

“Graham, we are going to talk about this.” The father of four looked disturbed.

Kade waved his hand. “I got it, Dad.” He beckoned Graham closer with one finger. Once the engineer was close enough, Kade grabbed him by the jaw and pulled the smaller man’s ear to his mouth. Whatever Kade whispered caused Graham’s eyes to go wide.

“Okay,” Graham agreed timidly a second later. Kade released him and shot a look at their father that clearly asked if that was good enough.

Charlie himself was wide eyed. “I don’t even want to know.”

Graham shed the entire conversation like a cube of lilleth feathers. “What I was trying to say is that just because we don’t listen to _everything_ Kade says doesn’t mean we don’t listen to _anything_ Kade says.” Graham blew the hair out of his eyes. “Kade _has_ to give you orders, even when you know what to do. Kade _has_ to take the credit, even when it belongs to you.” Graham glared a very clear message at Heatwave: _Get over it_. “Kade might not always be right, but he is a good firefighter. Find some respect.”

Graham looked at Kade and so did Heatwave. Pink streaks of sanitized human energon ran down his sides, staining the white stripes on his shorts. His fragile human mesh was pock-marked with jagged holes, most of which oozed the strange red energon. As Dani worked the crust of brown off Kade’s ear, it began to _bleed_–that was the word– running down his jaw and dripping on his shoulder. Kade grimaced, leaning away as Dani twisted the damaged cartilage to examine the wound.

“That is actually through and through,” she said, sounding impressed. “But all in all, not so bad.”

Suddenly, Heatwave doubted. Cody had showed them _blood_ when he’d fallen and scraped his hands, but he’d just wiped his palms against his pants a few times and the _bleeding_ had stopped. The blood was streaming down Kade’s face. That wasn’t _normal_. It wasn’t just a mesh wound; energon was meant to be _in_ not out. But the humans were acting like the small faucet coming from the side of Kade’s head was nothing to worry about.

Dani poured something out of a brown bottle onto Kade’s ear. It foamed and Kade hissed. “Want me to put an earring in that?”

Kade’s expression relaxed. “Yeah,” he said thoughtfully, “but don’t.”

Dani hummed her agreement, pinching Kade’s ear in a wad of gauze. “Graham, hold this for a minute until it clots, I’m going to get a better look at his arm.” Graham took her place and Dani bent close to the ragged cut still bleeding down the back of Kade’s right arm. She poured liquid from the translucent bottle over the wound. It didn’t foam, but Kade still hissed. “Kade, I think this needs stitches.”

“So, stitch it.”

Dani stared incredulously at the back of his head. “Kade, I’m not…” she began.

“I’d do it myself…” Kade lifted his arm, trying to see the damage. “But I can’t reach back there.” He looked at the blood dripping off his fingers. “Geeze, no wonder it hurt so bad. How big is it.”

“Four point two centimeters,” Blades supplied helpfully as Dani grumpily threaded a curved needle. She didn’t warn Kade before hooking it into his skin, but the man just grunted. Heatwave watched in morbid fascination as Dani sewed her brother’s skin back together.

Heatwave could have protected Kade. Could have prevented this horror. He looked helplessly at Chase, but the police bot just shook his head disapprovingly. The damage was done. It was up to Heatwave to do better.


End file.
